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World's First Massively Multiplayer Forecast Game?
krou writes "The Institute of the Future will soon be launching what it calls the first massively multiplayer forecast game, billed as The Superstruct Game. According to the game's FAQ, the idea is to 'imagine how we might solve the problems we'll face.' Interestingly, the game itself is meant to be played 'on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces.' From the IFTF website's sneak peak, the game is set in the year 2019, where the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has forecast the possibility of human extinction by the year 2042 as the result of five simultaneous 'super-threats': Quarantine, which is a result from 'declining health and pandemic disease'; Ravenous, which relates to the global collapse of the world food system; Power Struggle, related to the flux of power 'as nations fight for energy supremacy and the world searches for alternative energy solutions'; Outlaw Planet, covering increased surveillance and loss of liberties; and, lastly, Generation Exile, which covers the massive increase in refugees."
Just what we need, propaganda games. I bet the conditions for winning are based in their political ideology.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I'd love to see this run as a Post Rapture forecast game... how much more interesting and less populated the world would be "post rapture"
heh...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I play the stockmarket.
Lets make another game! Lets call it a political MMORPG. You predict what the US will be in 2 years when Obama/McCain or another president becomes in charge. Oh, never mind the fact that unless you say that the world would be a wonderful place if whoever I want to win the election, you lose.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Woohoo, I just predicted a hurricane will attack land later tonight!
I'd play it. Good way to take out my frustration at the ignorant ignoring and frustrating solution of the real issues of the world today:-(
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
I click on the buttons and Nothing Happens. Slashdotted?
I guess InTrade wasn't good enough?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
It's just like all those post-apocalyptic games we used to play, only before the apocalypse, and in real life.
:(
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
It's basically about being greedy. Screw the human race, just concentrate on being the person who scientists will say the human species originated from in 5000 years time.
All you need to do is be as greedy as possible and do everything for yourself while nothing for everyone else.
While avoiding being killed by those who resent you for doing it, or by people who see you as a threat to their own greed.
The sad thing is that it isn't a game and people play for keeps.
Most of them are politicians, but some are lawyers or even managers.
Oh, and cheating is encouraged. :)
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
To take place in 2042 too.
Their first puzzle is how to make this game profitable!
Zing!
So it's this site crossed up with an Alternate Reality Game. Whoopee.
"Skynet"
This part in particular got me:
The Superthreats
GEAS has identified five superthreats and given them memorable names as a way of encouraging discussion and awareness:
* Quarantine covers the global response to declining health and pandemic disease, including the current Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ReDS) crisis.
* Ravenous focuses on the imminent collapse of the global food system, as well as debates over industrial vs. ecological agricultural models, and basic issues of access, energy, and carbon.
* Power Struggle tracks the results of energy resource peaks and the shifts in international power as nations fight for energy supremacy and the world searches for alternative energy solutions.
* Outlaw Planet embodies the volatile mix of new forms of surveillance, transparency, civil rights, and access to information as people work out new rules for human security.
* Generation Exile follows the massive "diaspora of diasporas" underway globally, as the number of refugees and migrants skyrockets in the face of climate change, economic disruption, and war.
I can't seem to find a link now, but there are 6 variables in the Valenzetti Equation, and a few of them align directly to the "superthreats".
Interesting coincidence? Do I watch too much TV?
Great Intellect...
The market is the first massively multiplayer forecast game. And it's a lot cooler than the disaster scenario of the month games listed above. None of the "super-threats" can cause extinction. If there's not enough food, then people starve to death until there's more food than people. None of the scenarios can break a developed world country with the exception of "outlaw planet". Further, all of this is based on the assumption that global health, food production, etc are getting worse. I don't see that.
- E.T.Jaynes, "Probability Theory, The Logic of Science"
Slashdot: Outlaw Planet, covering increased surveillance and loss of liberties
The site: Outlaw Planet embodies the volatile mix of new forms of surveillance, transparency, civil rights, and access to information as people work out new rules for human security.
Notice the difference? The GEAS clearly sees Outlaw planet as the struggle to balance civil rights with the need for security and hence accountability. You need openess of goverment but at the same time need secure systems safe from outside influence. How do you balance this?
Yet /. 'editors' (my apologies to all true editors) only highlight the loss of civil liberties and increased surveillance.
Not that I agree with GEAS either, we recently did have a huge attack on the finacial markets. 9/11 anyone? Trading suspended for a week? How about the bursting of the bubble, black friday?
The depression is as close as we got to a 'perfect storm' on the financial front and humanity survived just fine.
Same with migration, dust bowl anyone? Entire civilizations moved home before and humanity clearly survived by the evidence that we are still here.
What is odd, is that they miss the greatest threat. What has been the biggest killer so far? Killing millions and causing massive chaos? Intolrance. From the grand-daddy of them all the Holocaust to Rwanda to the latest 'race' riots in South Africa, this is the real killer. One group deciding they don't need to get along with everyone else and that if they upset the peace they can improve their lot.
All the other problems can be countered by humanity, but when we stop thinking of others as human beings we loose the need to cope with problems that NOW face others but might face us in the future.
Food shortage is a problem in some areas but not the west. Needless to say that food shortage ain't exactly at the top of the agenda. We are not spending nearly enough to come up with ways to fight food shortage, leaving us with NO soluntions IF/WHEN it hits us.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Soooo... they want us to write essays on the future. Sure I'm eating all my food in pill form and discussing how screwed up the world is. Collate this into your forecast idiots!
Jonah HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Five bucks says this is sponsored by some think-tank group at the top wanting to figure out how would populace react to various emergencies...so they know what response to prepare (to maintain status quo, of course)
Too bad, I had visions of this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/20/
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The average human is a social creature, motivated by what is good for the species, not for them as individuals. Modern economic experiments all agree, the selfish actor theory is dead. People are far more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than self interest. People will incur serious harm to themselves to punish perceived unfairness in others, giving up months worth of real salary in recent experiments to punish the greedy players.
This is the reason that true sociopaths are so uncommon. If people really were selfish, sociopaths would have the advantage, and they would be genetically selected for. They aren't, so there are very few of them.
They are the real problem, though. People only act selfish when there is no other option. The prediction that people will act selfishly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. People see selfishness and act selfishly to avoid being taken advantage of. Sociopaths always act selfishly.
Our society is set up to reward sociopaths. Because of this, society is seen as selfish, and people feel the need to act selfishly in order to survive. If society punishes sociopaths and selfishness, experiments show people will act in a fair and generous fashion.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
1) Aquifer depletion: overuse of the currently existing resource.
2) Drought: lack of rain where there once was rain; clearly, this is exacerbated by global warming, as the monsoon belts shift.
3) Pollution: otherwise potable water is made unusable by waste or commercial contamination.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.